In April, I reluctantly attended the 100th birthday of Rose Taylor, the matriarch of the Taylor cyber crime family.
I had no desire to visit their damp Quonset hut next to the subway yards, nor to see Rose’s son Sonny getting drunk while she was engaged in furtive conversations with her other son Sid.
And what were they trying to pull? On her last birthday six months before, Rose was announced as being 98. She had added two years to her age, like a teenager pretending to be an adult.
But this was to be a double celebration. The Taylors revealed that Mo Moss was buying their firm, the Data Shack, its name and all its assets (except for the Quonset hut).
“I’m tired of just making money. I want to build something.” Mo said.
It’s not clear that he built anything, but thanks to the Taylors he was soon was able to stop worrying that he was making money.
We shared a limo back to town, and Mo’s son Yale said, “I don’t like it.”
Yale was right. At home in Florida, Mo reviewed the Data Shack’s Undesirables database, and realized it was identical to his Proclivities database. He was buying his own stolen email list.
A week later, the Taylors announced the gala opening of the Data Hut, in the same location as the Data Shack. And it offered all of the same products. I skipped that event.
Mo felt like a fool. But he knows how to play the game. He trademarked the name before the Taylors could get to it and announced the grand opening of his new brand: The Data Hut.
Then Yale had another idea. He asked his father-in-law, the real estate magnate Hal Hall, for permission, and it was granted immediately.
That very night, bulldozers rolled over the Quonset hut that housed the Data Shack and then the Data Hut. The Hall real estate arm started building a condo on the site the next morning.
As usual, though, the Taylors had the last word, although it’s not clear what good it did them. They sent an email to Hal, saying, “Thanks for demolishing the place: We were going to do it ourselves. Do we owe you any money?”
There is no resemblance between these characters and real people living or dead.
The TellAllmarketing Blog 